Life, Work and Legacy of Carl Jung

Carl Jung on “Animus” – Anthology.

In states of excitement we speak to ourselves as though to an excited horse, that bit is the part possessed by the anima. In a woman the animus is multiform so that he cannot be nailed down so well as the anima. ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Page 27.

On a low level the animus is an inferior Logos, a caricature of the differentiated masculine mind, just as on a low level the anima is a caricature of the feminine Eros. ~Carl Jung, Commentary Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 41.

For the son, the animus is hidden in the dominating power of the mother and sometimes she leaves him with a sentimental attachment that lasts throughout life and seriously impairs the fate of the adult. ~Carl Jung, CW 9, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, Page 29.

The animus is the masculine thinking in a woman. ~ Carl Jung, CW 13, The Philosophical Tree; Page 267.

Like every archetype, the animus has a Janus face. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, The Philosophical Tree; Page 268.

When a woman realizes her shadow the animus can be constellated. If the shadow remains in the unconscious the animus possesses her through the shadow. When she realizes her animus, mystical generation can occur. Sarah was Abraham’s legitimate wife, but Hagar, the dark one, had the procreative animus. Out of darkness the light is born. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 30.

A woman is oriented towards the animus because it is the son of the unknown father, the Old Sage, whom she never comes to know. This motive is hinted at in the Gnostic texts where Sophia in her madness loves the Great Father On the other hand a man does not know the mother of the anima. She may be personified, for example, in Sophia or the seven times veiled Isis. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 30.

To a man the anima is the Mother of God who gives birth to the Divine Child. To a woman the animus is the Holy Spirit, the procreator. He is at once the light and the dark God — not the Christian God of Love who contains neither the Devil nor the Son. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung; Pages 31-32.

The animus which is not realized by the mother is like a part of a soul with a relative existence of its own. . ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 29.

The power operating through the animus emanates specifically from the self, which is hidden behind it, and from its mana. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 29.

. . . no man can converse with an animus for five minutes without becoming the victim of his own anima. Anyone who still had enough sense of humour to listen objectively to the ensuing dialogue would be staggered by the vast number of commonplaces, misapplied truisms, clichés from newspapers and novels, shop-soiled platitudes of every description interspersed with vulgar abuse and brain-splitting lack of logic. It is a dialogue which, irrespective of its participants, is repeated millions and millions of times in all languages of the world and always remains essentially the same. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams and Reflections; Page 392 and Aion, CW 9, ii, Page 15

With a little self-criticism one can see through the shadow-so far as its nature is personal. But when it appears as an archetype, one encounters the same difficulties as with anima and animus. In other words, it is quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil of his nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil. ~Carl Jung; CW 17; The Shadow; Page 338; par. 19.

The symbolic form of love (animus-anima) shrinks from nothing, least of all from sexual union. Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Pages 213-214.

It has just struck me that in my commentary I have suggested using “logos” for “hun” instead of “animus,” because “animus” is a natural term for the “mind” of a woman, corresponding to the “anima” of a man. European philosophy must take into account the existence of feminine psychology. The “anima” of a woman might suitably be designated “Eros.” ~Carl Jung to Richard Wilhelm, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 67-68.

The animus of women is an answer to the spirit which rules the man. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 479-481.

To begin with I did not have the feeling at all that I was guilty of plagiarism with my [anima/animus] theory, but in the last 5 years it has become more and more uncanny as I have discovered quite suspicious traces of it also in the old alchemists, and now the mischief seems complete since it turns out that I was discovered already in the 18th century. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 248.

The fact that the animus and the anima part after death and go their ways independently shows that, for the Chinese consciousness, they are distinguishable psychic factors which have markedly different effects, and, despite the fact that originally they are united in ‘the one effective, true human nature’, in the ‘house of the Creative,’ they are two. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

‘The animus is in the heavenly heart.’ The animus lives in the daytime in the eyes (that is in consciousness); at night it houses in the liver. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

Hun [Animus], then, would be the discriminating light of consciousness and of reason in man, originally coming from the logos spermatikos of hsing, and returning after death through shen to the Tao. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 116.

The animus lives in the daytime in the eyes; at night it houses in the liver. When living in the eyes, it sees; when housing itself in the liver, it dreams. Dreams are the wanderings of the spirit through all nine Heavens and all the nine Earths. ~Richard Wilhelm, Secret of the Golden Flower

In any case, animus (hun) is the light, yang-soul, while anima (p’o) is the dark, yin-soul. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 16.

If, on the other hand, it has been possible during life to set going the “backward-flowing, rising movement of the life-forces, if the forces of the anima are mastered by the animus, then a release from external things takes place. They are recognized but not desired. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 17.

If we want to draw the psychological conclusion we must go further and say that the West has an anima, that is, a feminine unconscious, and that the East has an animus, that is, a masculine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 204.

Possession caused by the anima or animus presents a different picture. . . .In the state of possession both figures lose their charm and their values; they retain them only when they are turned away from the world, in the introverted state, when they serve as bridges to the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.

The animus is obstinate, harping on principles, laying down the law, dogmatic, world-reforming, theoretic, word-mongering, argumentative, and domineering. Both alike have bad taste: the anima surrounds herself with inferior people, and the animus lets himself be taken in by second-rate thinking. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222f.

The “Soul” which accrues to ego-consciousness during the Opus has a feminine character in the man and a masculine character in a woman. His anima wants to reconcile and unite; her animus tries to discern and discriminate. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Par. 522.

The animus corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima corresponds to the maternal Eros. ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Par. 28f.

The unpleasant power-complex of the female animus is encountered only when a woman does not allow her feeling to express itself naturally or handles it in an inferior way. But this, as said, can happen in all situations of life and has nothing whatever to do with the right to vote. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 477-478

So we should talk to our animus or anima…so you listen to the inner mentor, you develop your inner ear; or you write automatically, and a word is formed by your hand, or your mouth speaks that which you have not thought ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Page 26.

And mind you, the animus is as terrible a reality as the anima. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 295

The animus is not created by the conscious, it is a creation of the unconscious, and therefore it is a personification of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 208

The animus is a sort of film between reality and a woman’s mind, she always talks about things as they should be, so when she says a thing is really so, it is really not so at all. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1228.

The animus when on his way, on his quest, is really a psychopompos, leading the soul back to the stars whence it came. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1229

On the way back out of the existence in the flesh, the psychopompos [Animus] develops such a cosmic aspect, he wanders among the constellations, he leads the soul over the rainbow bridge into the blossoming fields of the stars. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1229

I could even go as far as to say that without the anima and animus there would be no object, no other human being, because you perceive differences only through that which is a likeness to the differences in yourself. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1357

The animus is meant to be cosmic. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1228.

The animus is not created by the conscious, it is a creation of the unconscious, and therefore it is a personification of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 208-209

The anima and animus have tremendous influence because we leave the shadow to them. ~Carl Jung, Dream Analysis, Page 53.

A woman possessed by the animus is always in danger of losing her femininity, her adapted feminine persona, just as a man in like circumstances runs the risk of effeminacy. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336

For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the “spiritual” sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the “world and woman,” i.e., the anima projected on to the world. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 559

If we want to draw the psychological conclusion we must go further and say that the West has an anima, that is, a feminine unconscious, and that the East has an animus, that is, a masculine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8th Dec 1939

A subtle body, breath or smoke resembling, which can also be correctly described as anima. Anima is the feminine of animus, which is identical with the Greek word anemos which means wind or breath. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 24 Feb 1939

I would strongly advise you to do this bit of analysis with a woman, since experience has shown that analysis with a man always has an effect on the animus, which for its part loosens up the personality again, whereas analysis with a woman tends on the contrary to have a “precipitating” effect. C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 190-191

Carl Jung on “Anti-Semitism” – Anthology

I am no anti-Semite. From all this I gained neither honours nor money, but I am glad that I could be of service to those in need. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 219

The mere fact that I speak of a difference between Jewish and Christian psychology suffices to allow anyone to voice the prejudice that I am an anti-Semite. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 160-163

I have included in it an essay by a Jewish author on the psychology of the Old Testament, just to annoy the Nazis and all those who have decried me as an anti-Semite. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 160-163

One risks being labelled as anti-Semite or pro-Semite without being heard at all. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 223-224

It is a downright lie to quote me as saying that Jews are dishonest in analysis. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 160-163

The mere fact that I speak of a difference between Jewish and Christian psychology suffices to allow anyone to voice the prejudice that I am an anti-Semite. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 160-163

There is a number of Jewish doctors who have studied with me, but the reason why you haven’t discovered them is that they are undiscoverable on account of their fear of being recognized as Jungians. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 223-224

As a matter of fact my first and most gifted pupils were Jews. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 223-224

Certainly the Jews have lived much longer in other countries but without the contact to the soil that was not accessible to them due to their being rooted in the Torah. ~Erich Neumann, Jung Correspondence 30 Jan 1936

I myself have personally treated very many Jews and know their psychology in its deepest recesses, so I can recognize the relation of their racial psychology to their religion, but it would be quite beyond me to relate Islam or the ancient Egyptian religion to its devotees as I lack any intimate knowledge of Arab
and Egyptian psychology. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 233

On account of my critical utterances I was “marked down” by the Gestapo, my books were banned in Germany, and in France they were for the most part destroyed. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 404-406

We naturally hope not to be implicated in the war, but there is only one conviction in Switzerland, that if it has to be, it will be on the side of the Allies. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 276

He [Jung] listened daily to the B.B.C. and knew that England was the only hope, and that they would never give in. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 24.

We are all terribly sorry for England and France. If they should lose the war, we also shall not escape the reign of the Antichrist. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 282

Referring to the rumours of his so-called Nazi sympathies, C.G. told me that his name was on the black List in Germany because of his views, and that he would certainly have been shot at once had he fallen into Nazi hands. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 26

Incidentally, if I were a Jew-eater I would hardly bring out books together with Jews as i have just done, or introduce books by Jewish authors. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 167

No one is more deeply convinced than I that the Jews are a people with a culture. Between culture and cultural form there is, as we know, an essential difference. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 167

If the Nazis had invaded Switzerland during the Second World War, I would have become a Catholic out of protest because the Catholic Church would then have represented the only spiritual power. That is, of course, if I had not been shot first. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 45.

Here in Switzerland we are still rationed, but can’t complain about anything since we were miraculously spared the Nazi madness. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 401.

If somebody is clever enough to see what is going on in people’s minds, in their unconscious minds, he will be able to predict. For instance, I could have predicted the Nazi rising in Germany through the observation of my German patients. ~Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 20.

It led to Jung, on his return, asking Swiss high schoolers to come to Kusnacht to observe them and compare them to the manic Germans.

One was the 18 year old Marie Louise Von Franz : “One morning—it was about the middle of the week—Jung stopped me on the stairs and said: “Take care, you are getting dangerously out of yourself.”

I knew he was right but had no idea why, until he added: “These people are all in a panic, they are scared stiff and have no idea where all this is leading.

I am afraid nothing can save them and that they are heading for inevitable disaster, but at least we will earn the merit of trying to help them as long as we can.”

That was enough to save my situation, for I realized at once that, since I had not seen their panic, I had become infected, via the unconscious.

The next day, seeing that I was once more in myself, Jung had a long talk about the whole thing with an English friend and me.

To anyone who, like myself, was with Jung in Berlin in July, 1933, and who saw and heard him frequently during the next twenty-eight years, the libel that Jung was a Nazi is so absurd and so entirely without foundation that it goes against the grain to take it seriously enough to contradict it.

Moreover, for the most part it is believed only by the people who want to believe it, and it is always useless to waste energy on them.

I learned this in 1914 and I have never forgotten the lesson.” ~Barbara Hannah, 1933 conference in Berlin attended by Jung, Emma, Toni, Heinrich Zimmer and Barbara Hannah.

It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that the psyche of a new-born child is a tabula rasa in the sense that there is absolutely nothing in it.

In so far as the child is born with a differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore individualized, it meets sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern of apperception.

These aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts and preformed patterns, the latter being the a priori and formal conditions of apperception that are based on instinct.

Their presence gives the world of the child and the dreamer its anthropomorphic stamp.

They are the archetypes, which direct all fantasy activity into its appointed paths and in this way produce, in the fantasy-images of children’s dreams as well as in the delusions of schizophrenia, astonishing mythological parallels such as can also be found, though in lesser degree, in the dreams of normal persons and neurotics.

It is not, therefore, a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities of ideas. ~Carl Jung, CW, 9i, Para 136

The original structural components of the psyche are of no less surprising a uniformity than are those of the visible body.

The archetypes are, so to speak, organs of the prerational psyche.

They are eternally inherited forms and ideas which have at first no specific content.

Their specific content only appears in the course of the individual’s life, when personal experience is taken up in precisely these forms. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 845

Seven Paintings and Quotations of Frida Kahlo I paint flowers so they will not die. I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through […]

In the image above, we see Vishvarupa, as the cosmic Person. The cosmic Person is the body and embodiment of Ultimate Reality (called Brahman in Sanskrit). In art and in myth, the Cosmic Purusha is… More

Moksha is a Sanskrit word meaning “free, release, liberate“. This word is related to the Sanskrit word mukti meaning “liberation”.The root word of both is muc meaning “to be free” * . In his commentary on the Upanishads, 8th century CE philosopher and theologian Adi Shankara speaks of Moksha. Shankara… More

Jungian Analysis is one of the most unique adventures a person can embark upon. While Carl Jung developed and proved the usefulness of his methods of analysis in the psychiatric ward, today many psychologically healthy individuals are discovering the depths of their own psyche through engaging with the messages from their own unconscious brought to […]

Frith Luton

Bollingen Press

All readers of this Blog are encouraged to view the Bollingen Publishing site and to purchase books related to the Life, Work, and Legacy of Dr. Jung’s works.

Fair Use Notice

Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.